Side-street smash sends funeral procession’s motorcycle escort to hospital

This accident is still under investigation, but see the results of this unusual car vs. motorcycle wreck …

-1 Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division officers examine the motorcycle involved in an accident on residential SE 112^th Avenue.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

On the unusually blustery and rain-swept afternoon of May 3, about 1:00 p.m., emergency reports came in – first of a police motorcycle officer, later corrected to being a funeral procession escort – colliding with a car.

The accident, on SE 112^th Avenue, about a block south of SE Division Street, shut down the residential road for several hours while the accident was being investigated.

The rider of this motorcycle was thrown as far as 40 feet from his bike, some say.

Witnesses said the still unnamed victim, a man riding a large Honda motorcycle from “First Call Plus Funeral Escort Service” was thrown as far as 40 feet from his motorcycle after the collision.

The car with which the motorcycle collided, a silver Hyundai sedan, appeared to have gone off the street, through a chain link fence, and rolled to a stop at the front porch of 2708 SE 112^th Avenue.

“A motorcycle escort for funeral procession (not a police bike) crashed into a car,” Portland Police Bureau Public Information Officer Sgt. Peter Simpson told East Portland News.

After the crash, this car ended up on the fenced front lawn of this outer East Portland home.

Dion Strommer, General Manager of First Call Plus Funeral Escort Service, a firm that he said provides a variety of mortuary-related service, told East Portland News that his rider was injured, but is expected to be released from the hospital soon.

Strommer declined to comment about the nature of the wreck.

“Traffic Division investigators got conflicting information about whether the car turned in front of the, bike or bike ran into a car,” Simpson reported. “The incident remains under investigation.”

Comments are closed.